10 Years of Cacti

and the Evolution of Plugins

Larry TheWitness Adams

[ thewitness@cacti.net ]
Agenda

What is Cacti?
The Origins of Cacti
The Classic Network Operations Model
Introducing the Plugin Architecture
Useful Plugins by Example
The Current State of Cacti
The Future of Cacti
Questions and Answers
2011 2
What is Cacti?

Cacti is the complete frontend to RRDTool!

It stores all of the necessary information to create
graphs and populate them with data in a MySQL
database.
The frontend is completely PHP driven.
Along with being able to maintain Graphs, Data
Sources, and Round Robin Archives in a database,
Cacti handles the data gathering.
There is also SNMP support for those used to creating
traffic graphs with MRTG.

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Graphs You Say.

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The Origins of Cacti

Started by Ian Berry in 2001 while he was in

high school
Published as a free Application on rrdtool.org
Website
Discovered by many while in search for a
replacement for you name it
Several ink-u-Berry releases and new
developers through 2004
Widespread global use began after the release
of 0.8.6 in the summer of 2004
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The Current Cacti Group August 2011

gandalf TheWitness LineGod BSOD2600

browniebraun rony raX cigamit
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Some Early Screen Shots (Holy crap Batman!)

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The Classic Network Operations Model

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The Classical Network Operations Model

ault Management
Fonfiguration
C A Management
PS
ccounting Management
FCAPS is the ISO Telecommunications
erformance Management
Management Network model and
framework for network management
ecurity Management
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Introducing the Plugin Architecture

The Cacti Plugin Architecture is a development

framework that allows Cacti functionality to be
extended
It was derived from the Squirrel Mail Project. Its
original author, Jimmy Conner, created it so that
Cacti could be extended beyond Performance
Management
It is implemented through a series of hooks
within the Cacti core
Each Plugin can use any of these hooks
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Public Domain Cacti Plugin
Examples
Some Popular Public Domain Cacti Plugins

Boost Cacti Performance Booster

THold Cacti Thresholding and Alarming

MacTrack IP/MAC Tracking

WeatherMap Interactive Network Topology Maps for Cacti

SuperLinks Cacti UI Extension Framework

Nectar Cacti E-Mail Reporting Tool

Realtime Realtime Graph Tool

Syslog System Log Alarming and Tracking Tool

HMIB Cacti Host Resources MIB Reporting Tool

ConfigManager Router Config Management Tool

Discovery Network Discovery Tool

Monitor Host Dashboard Tool

Autom8 Graph and Tree Automation Tool

ReportIt Cacti Top X Reports

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Cacti Plugins by Example - THold

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Cacti Plugins by Example MacTrack

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Cacti Plugins by Example MacTrack

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Cacti Plugins by Example MacTrack

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Cacti Plugins by Example MacTrack

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Cacti Plugins by Example MacTrack

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Cacti Plugins by Example WeatherMap

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Cacti Plugins by Example WeatherMap

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Cacti Plugins by Example WeatherMap

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Cacti Plugins by Example Nectar

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Cacti Plugins by Example Realtime

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Cacti Plugins by Example Syslog

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Cacti Plugins by Example - HMIB

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Additional Commercial Cacti
Plugin Examples
Scanner ISP Network Management Uber Tool
Scanner Device Interface

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Scanner Interfaces

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Scanner Thresholds

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Scanner Fabrics

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Scanner Aggregate Graphs

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Scanner Graphs

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Platform RTM The Grid Computing War Horse

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Platform RTM Cluster Dashboard

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Platform RTM Host Dashboard

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Platform RTM Finished Job Details

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Platform RTM Statistical Dashboard

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Platform RTM Host Details

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RTM Host Dashboard 4k+ Hosts/4 Continents

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Farmmon Dashboard

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Process Status Process List

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The State of and Future of Cacti
Current State of Cacti

The Cacti Group is Alive and Well

Release of 0.8.7h Released
Lossless Re-Indexing
Poller Performance Increases
Additional Template Import Options
RRDTool 1.4.x Support
Improved Spine Performance
Per Host Parallelization Support
Everyone is busy with their day Jobs
The Future of Cacti

Development of Next Version Near Alpha

Quality
200+ Commits by All Developers in August
Site Support
Internationalization (i18n)
Multiple Time Zone Support
Integrated Plugin Architecture
Large Site Performance Improvements
Heavy CSS & Ajax Callback Support

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Cacti 1.0.0 Teaser

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 Questions and Answers

Live is an Adventure. Let yours begin

with Cacti